Heritage home lovingly remade

John Griffin, The Gazette11.21.2012

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market. Their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).Handout photo
/ Lois Hardacker | Royal Lepage Action

Blame the children. The owners of a little slice of paradise in the Eastern Townships have very reluctantly put their former dairy farm on the market because their kids have the insensitivity to live and work in downtown Toronto. To make matters worse, those kids have recently spawned progeny of their own. For reasons mired deep in the mists of antiquity, grandparents cannot seem to resist spending quality time with the children of their children.

Norman and Susan are no exception. Asked why they are moving, they list three reasons - the names of the grandkids. A fourth might be the soul-eroding drive up and down the 401 to visit them, a trip they've taken once too often. So, with much heartache, their property, situated in gentle hill country between Sutton and Brome Lake, is listed with Royal Lepage at $1.1 million (MLS# 9979822).

"This did not look like this when we got here," Susan explains, with a sweep of her arm to the four-bedroom, 1895 heritage house, a recent two-storey workshop, extensive gardens, swimming pond and 14 acres of mixed pasture and woodland. Before, during and after photos are proof she's telling nothing but the stone-cold truth.

The place was a wreck when they decided on a bottom-to-top overhaul, begun May 1, 2005, and ready for a Thanksgiving celebration that year. Norman is a talented woodworker, but the scale of the operation required calling in the cavalry.

"We had to redo the foundation, walls and windows," he says. "Only the roof survived."

Five Dumpsters later, "the foundation was sealed and insulated, and French drains installed. We put up James Hardie fibre cement siding and poured a new foundation under the garage and mud room."

There's an eight-foot bump-out addition in the new country kitchen area for stunning views of the water and unspoiled surrounding countryside, and to acknowledge the reality that owners and guests alike are drawn like fridge magnets to the heart of the home. Especially when that heart is a gas-electric Aga stove.

"We've had 10 people for dinner in here,'' Susan says.

Counters are topped in granite, cupboards are tongue-and-groove painted country white, and the long pine dining table has seen use. A new gas fireplace is flanked by two comfy armchairs that on this day are occupied by the real owners, a pair of cats who find no reason to interrupt their sleep in the autumn sun just because there's company. French doors lead to a stone terrace and down a hill to the pond.

"The kids love sledding here in the winter," Susan says.

For the record, there is a marginally more formal dining room and a very comfortable living room, with its own fireplace. They, like the rest of the home, are neither too big, nor too small, but just right.

"We use every room," the owners say.

The exception is a formal entry, which, in country tradition, is only darkened by complete strangers. A den, cloak room and powder room round out the ground floor's statistics, except for the mud room that leads to a heated garage and the yard beyond.

A gracious, winding staircase leads to four bedrooms, including an inviting master suite with walk-in custom closet and adjoining bath. Susan has her own hobby space on this floor in the former attic, now redone with vaulted, tongue-and-groove ceiling and a window overlooking the orchard. It's another room you could only leave feet first.

But enough about the house. Watch the spring in Norman's step as he leads you to the atelier/shop/big toys-for-boys outbuilding, put up in 2007 beside an ancient stone-lined lane that once guided cows to the milking shed. This heated bombproof shelter could easily sub as a house on its own, were it not for the tractor and sitting mower behind two tall electric doors; the fantastic shop where he builds wonderful items like the grandkids' beds; and an upstairs loft where he escapes what passes for the hurly-burly of rural life in "the very best place in the whole world to live."

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